Ancient Objects
by verystrangest
Summary: A tiny sphere is thrown from a warpstorm near the eastern fringe of the ImperialTau borders. Collected by an Inquisitor, he surprised to discover the sphere is an ancient artefact from the early Age of Strife. What will he do as inside is revealed?
1. Chapter 1

Ancient Objects: Chapter One 

I was watching over the rift. It had turned up unexpectedly and without explanation or apparent cause at the outside of a system so irrelevant on the Imperial-Tau border was enough to worry my superiors. In fact, wreckage of an ancient Eldar ship had been thrown out of the rift, detected by a surprised navigator, and that was when I was sent to observe.

In fact, the whole affair had me quite worried. It seemed too lucky that an Eldar vessel's wreckage would appear at just the right place to be found by a navigator. Knowing the Eldar it would be an amazing surprise if they had not planned for the occurrence – the advantage this should offer us in battle would probably have massive effects on the future.

So either the vessel was too ancient and outmoded to be of value, or the gains would only be small, or…

…or this had been planned out, and either or neither of the above was true.

At that point my astropath, an able and tiring man in his thirty's called Lazzo, walked up to my side and informed me of valuable information:

"I believe that the rift is about to send out something – but it does not seem to be an Eldar vessel fragment," Lazzo said in his thin, ready voice. "It seems," he continued, "to contain living beings. Humans, sir."

I took in the shocking revelation with a spectacle look at Lazzo. I then walked towards a Tech-Priest who had been sent to observe and help examine the craft. He was tall and with a servo-arm mercandrite and artificial arm. He probably had other artificial parts as well, beneath his robes and skin. Many of the Mechanicus do.

"What time did you say those fragments are from?" I asked him.

"Inquisitor, you will remember that due to the xenon's methods of construction it is impossible to gain knowledge of age from it," he told me in his thin, reedy, voice, with disapproval in his tone.

"However," he continued, "I have been able to analyse dust caught in a warp field at the time of the warp storm and have estimated it at approximately fifteen thousand years old, Inquisitor."

"That would place it near the beginning of the Age of Strife. If we can recover it with the inhabitants alive … Solairis, prepare to engage the archaeological clamps," I told my pilot, a short Glavien named in honour of the great general.

Suddenly Lazzo walked forwards and stood next to me, staring at space in the view screen.

"There," he said, pointing. "Three kilometres x, minus two point eight kilometres y and zero point seven kilometres z. I can feel it." That once again reminded me of Lazzo's twin skills as an astropath and savant.

"Take us on a heading for that location," I instructed Solaris. "Are the clamps ready?"

"Few more seconds sir," he told me.

Then space lit up with a glow as something left the warp. We didn't notice anything at first, but a pict-magnification of space revealed a small sphere had appeared and that it was accelerating towards us.


	2. Chapter 2

**Ancient Objects: Chapter Two **

**No reviews so nothing to reply to.  Also, updates might not always come this quickly. **

**Edit: due to a review about this chapter expressing disappointment at the lack of clarity I have rewritten it.**

Somewhere things are happpening - and I know what. I know what from my dreams.

I've been dreaming about this for some time. Ever since I was given this task that place has been in my dreams. Somehow I forget the dreams when I wake up, only to remember them temporarily and without warning. I watch in the third person. Every time I remember this dream I feel as if I dream it again, only to learn no time has passed at all.

And now I remembered a dream:

There is a person. It seems, like a servitor or Tech-Priest, to have replaced all flesh with machinery. I know it is a person because, as a latent if weak gamma-level psyker, I can instinctively tell the difference between a servitor and a machine. It is bipedal, and stands almost two metres tall. In design it is amazingly similar to a human – five, three-jointed, fingers per hand and so on. Though it wears no cloths other than its shining steel chassis and has no protection from dirt or the elements, it does not have any mud on it at all, not on its feet or its arms or its toes. Finally, there are love-heart pairs arranged into a pattern of a 6-pointed star on his left shoulder and chest, and some words I do not understand on his right shoulder and chest. I think of it as 6-point hearts. It stands in a seemingly infinite flat, green grassland, with the grass trimmed neatly, where the blue sky and grassy land do not meet, for there is no horizon, and not a hill nor crater nor river nor lake to distinguish any part of the grassland from any other part. And neither is there any wildlife. There is not a single rabbit-hole nor fly nor worm or bird. 

_Also, there is an archway. It is stone and makes a curve about two metres high and one across. One the other side of it there is simply further grasslands._

_But then there is a strange ripple within the archway, similar to a heat shimmer. It quickly forms into the shape of another such person, but with different writing on his right shoulder and chest, and jugs each containing one love-heart each arranged into a pattern of an eight-pointed star on his left shoulder. I think of it as 8-point heart-jugs._

_Suddenly 8-point heart-jugs burst out in speech. It is the speech of an adult human female, beautiful, young and musical. Yet very worried._

"_The ship is under attack by immaterial predators. We must escape!"_


	3. Chapter 3

**Ancient Objects: Chapter Three**

**Ah. Wrote this days ago. Forgot to upload. **

**Announcement: You will be unsurprised to find I have rewritten chapter two due to its vagueness. Anyway, chapter three.**

"Sir, I would estimate that unless we take evasive action then at its present rate of acceleration the sphere will hit us in approximately forty seconds. It also seems to, judging from its acceleration, have engines far superior to our own," came Lazzo's voice, breaking into my dream.

"Inquisitor, permission to scan the object?" said the Tech-Priest, before I could reply to Lazzo.

"Permission to scan the object granted," I told the Tech-Priest. "Solaris, evade it, but don't stop the Tech-Priest from scanning," I ordered Solaris.

"Right then," he said, taking the ship to a different vector.

"Sir, the sphere's vector is changing. It's moving towards up, sir," said Lazzo.

"It's on a collision course," Solaris pointed out.

"Tech-Priest, see if you can find out what's propelling that thing," I snapped. "Solaris, take us into the asteroid belt, let's see if we can evade it," I continued, hoping Solaris would fly as well as he did last year in a dogfight with orkish fighta-bommas.

Solaris quickly took us into the nearby belt, and the sphere, even more quickly followed. While in the belt, Solaris attempted to do a large number of manoeuvres, including the launching of decoys, switching off engines and hiding behind asteroids. Unfortunately, whenever we tried to do anything the sphere continued tracking us. And then the worst news came.

"Demons – in the sphere, sir!" exclaimed Lazzo suddenly.

"Possessing the humans?" I checked.

"No sir. However, they appear to be moving in from the warp, sir," he told me, regaining his composure.

"Very well. Solaris, charge the forward lance."

"But Inquisitor, I have been unable to even determine the method of its acceleration. There is so much more to learn from this," pleaded the Tech-Priest.

"What is there to learn? The sphere is being used by demons to enter real-space. That, I cannot allow. And even if we were to enter it, what would demons leave worth salvaging save dead bodies?" I questioned. "No," I said, "I must but an end it this. Fire!"

Solaris swung us around an asteroid and fired at the sphere. A glowing beam from our nose cone hit it. I could see parts of the sphere glowing red from heat, but nothing peeling away as it would if the surface had melted. Then the beam shut off.

The sphere was undamaged!


	4. Chapter 4

**Ancient Objects: Chapter Four**

**This chapter is rather short, but more for dramatic tension than actual sectioning of the storyline.  
**

**Only two reviews! I do like them. Still, replies coming:**

**Tsathoggua: Chapter Two should be difficult to understand. More will be revealed as the story goes on. Also, it has been edited to improve clarity.**

As the sphere plunged towards me I suddenly recollected another dream, and I felt memory overwhelm me:

_There was a room of iron. I knew it to be a room because it had a ceiling, but the walls, unlike the iron-grey ceiling and floor, were black. I guessed that to be from shadow – but there was so little light. My eyes did little, but my psychic talents did much – and they told me that the place was unending._

_In the centre of the room there was a table. It was about two by three metres and, like the room itself, made of iron._

_There was another of the augmetic people their. Its hands were placed upon a small, golden plate set upon the table. It was like the other people, and on its left shoulder there was a design of jugs filled with polygons containing too many angles to possibly fit in one shape. It formed a star of six points._

_The design was terrible to think about. It made me think of it as six jug-shape._

_It suddenly raised its hands off the gold plate. I was surprised to see the gold plate vanish and a small gold cube appear. It leaned forward and grabbed the cube._

_A moment later the space next to the table shimmered, and an iron archway appeared next to the tablet. Six jug-shape ran into the archway, and then vanished._


	5. Chapter 5

**Ancient Objects: Chapter Five **

**Right, another work of literacy.**

**But before you read it…**

… **REVIEW! IT DOES NOT MATTER WHICH CHAPTER. REVIEW!**

**It's fun to review stuff. **

I felt the memory of the dream fade, but, instead of being in the world again, another memory surfaced.

_I was back in the landscape, the infinite grassland. It has changed since I last saw it._

_Once it was lifeless, but now strange, multi-limed creatures were appearing, being summoned from strange ripples in the air. I recognised them as Horrors of Tzeetch._

_They surrounded the stone archway as if waiting. And then a ripple appears. It forms into the shape of Six Jug-Shape who was immediately tackled by a Horror. A moment later, however, a shining light came from the golden cube and hit the Horrors, cutting them down in swaths. Whenever a Horror was hit, it caught fire and burnt without trace._

_I saw Six Jug-Shape run towards more of its augmetic brethren. I realized they were 8-Point Heart-Jugs and 6-Point Hearts. 8-Point Heart-Jugs had a gapping wound in the head, as if a Horror's tentacles had battered it repeatedly, and brain leaked out of it. 6-Point Hearts body was mostly dripping and melted in a pool of iron surrounding it._

_Six Jug-Shape paused near the corpses for a second, and ceased using the deadly beam. However, a moment later the beam continued to incinerate Horrors and Six Jug-Shape crouched and ruffled his hands through the grass in the ground. He quickly found a stone – something totally out of place in the nearly blank grasslands – and picked it up with the same hand holding the golden cube – it's right._

_At that point the air started to shimmer around us in a dome. Fear welled inside me – were these people to be attacked by a mutant of Tzeetch. However, I was relaxed to find us surrounded on all sides by an earth mound that glowed strangely, providing an eerie light. I could feel the warp in it._

_Come to think, I could feel the warp everywhere here. In the grass, the iron, the air and the light. Everything! It was as if this was somehow part of the Immatirium, somehow merged with it._

_And some things, the the stone, the cube and the new mound positively stank of it's taint. It made wonder why the demons were attacking them. Tzeetch is no given to random destruction, and thought that perhaps these people had made a pact with it._

_While I was thinking the memory of a dream had become slightly blurry and unfocused. I realized that I had left my body in my sleep and seen this place, and that nearly all of my thoughts here were simply memories being repeated._

_As I turned towards Six Jug-Shape I saw a hologram surrounding it, projected by the cubes. It snapped out before I could get a good look._

_And them Six Jug-Shape murmured to itself, in an Ancient form of Low Gothic, with the reedy voice of an old man:_

"_So our barriers have failed and our ship is invaded. So our cargo is loose and now dangerous due to the creatures of alternate dimensions. So we have moved forwards to a place we do not wish to be, and I now seek advice of risks and probability," he suddenly stopped his strange monolog._

_Of all the things to happen next I did not expect this. A beeping sound had come from the cube. It seemed like a machine code. I guessed that the cube contained some form of vox link._

_Six Jug-Shape nodded slightly, the first piece of body-launguage I had seen him make._

"_Initiate teleport," he said._


	6. Chapter 6

**Ancient Objects: Chapter Six **

**Tsathoggua: No, it isn't a halliculation. As far as he knows he's been seeing things in his dreams and remembering them – almost re-experiencing them - when he sees a sphere that came out of the warp and started zooming towards his ship. Don't forget he is a gamma level psyker. For comparison, Ravenor is low-gamma.**

**Readers, the plot begins to progress, and at the prompting of the dreaded Ordos Helican.**

"Inquisitor, may I be allowed to ask a question of you?" the Tech-Priest asked me, using a vox instead of his mouth and High-Formal in an obvious attempt to show superiodity.

"Ask the question, Tech-Priest, and I will decide whether or not I choose to answer," I returned, also using High-Formal.

"Thank you, Inquisitor," he said, switching to Low Gothic, and using his voice. I guessed that either his command of High Formal was limited, or that he was hoping to confuse me with High Formal and vox-speak but had realized his failure, or that he was attempting a gesture of equality.

"Inquisitor, when the craft collapsed why did you not recover the wreakage? You simply went back to this blackship and took the recently teleported beings to the medicare. It could have been of incalculable value," he pointed out in a rather annoyed tone.

"That I shall explain momentarily. Lord Osma, however, wishes an immediate report, and I must give it. Listen, and you will learn."

"After I fired the ships lance I was amazed to see that, though heated, the sphere was heated but completely undamaged. However, several seconds later its motive power vanished and it collapsed into what sensors told me were of an unnateral atomic structure, that then collapsed, according to sensors."

"Was their any wreakage," Inquisitor Osma asked me from the command chair of the ship.

"Yes. After the atoms in the ship collapsed they reformed in to some form of unknown substance, Lord," I replied. "That the knowledge of the mighty Imperium of Man could not understand this reaction confused me and worried me, yet soon after I was comforted that I did not know," I finished.

"What do you mean?" asked Osma.

"I discovered there to be a warp taint – my astropath could easily recognise it. I judged that, including the evidence of the demonic he reported, and the fact that a warp-taint was detected in the new substance, that the safest course of action was to fire at it. It then ignited and I returned here, Inquisitor Lord."

Osma sighed slightly and appeared satisfied with my explanation, silencing the Magos'es complaints with a wave of his hand.

"Then it seems that our Brother Inquisitor has been correct in his actions. Now, what of the survivors?" questioned Osma.

"They are all in sickbay. It seemed there was a malfunction in their teleport. When they appeared they were all wounded in the travel. I believe further explanations should best left the Adeptus Mechanicus and Adeptus Medicare, Lord."

"Very well. I have already heard their report, Brother Inquisitor. I suggest you go to the sickbay now and ask for a report their."


	7. Chapter 7

**Ancient Objects: Chapter Seven **

**Terrible case of 'Writers Block' (and my Mum was sick) so sorry for the late update.**

**This is the last chapter told from the view of our Inquisitor so I can tell the story properly.**

I walked over to the Chief Medicare in the white, sterile room. She was behind a desk reading a data-slate. She tapped it with the back end of her pen, and then put it down.

"Inquisitor! Lord Osma just informed me of your imminent arrival," she said, a happy tone in her voice. I guessed she didn't, in this servitor manned area, have many chances to speak to the sane or healthy. "I am aware you wish to speak to my patients."

"There're conscious? I was, on leaving them here, under the impression that it would be several days until they recovered," I told the Medicare.

"Yes, Inquisitor. All five of them." She was bemused, and I could tell this was from my changing expression.

"How?" I asked.

"I don't know. One of them laid down some symbols and began some kind of rubbing motion on the wounds. They simply re-knitted themselves, I've never seen anything like it".

It seemed like the touch of the warp to me. However, even Chaos has been known to hide secrets, and sacred technology was certainly one of the. Of course, this could even be some sort of technology that mealy seemed like magic. It could be nanobotic, or even could be some form of controlled warp use.

The mere prospect of speaking to such an example of ancient humanity, a creative and imaginative humanity, humanity on the rise, greatly appealed to him. He was not the most forward-looking of the Inquisition, nor a radical, or even a prospector of change, but he could not see the Emperor wishing the Cult Mechanicus to act as it did, stagnated and uninventive. But I could not take the risk of any form of evil warp magics.

So, at that point I contacted the astropaths aboard the ship.

The intensity of warp magic going on in that cargo hold was, according to them, enough to send some of them into shock. One astropath was gibbering crazily about time and space not working properly.

I had the Chief Medicare executed for negligence, the astropaths examined by Interrogator Jeanine and the Deathwatch Kill Team on hold to fight the risk of Eldar ambushes from the fragments of the ship sent to the Medicare, with a mission to clense.

There is only one way to deal with evil warp magics.


End file.
